Tired Of The Constant Ringing In Your Ears? Here's What An Audiologist Can Do To Alleviate Your Tinnitus Symptoms
Posted on: 15 March 2019
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If you're constantly hearing phantom sounds that aren't present in the environment, such as a loud ringing noise, you may be suffering from tinnitus. Tinnitus can have a major negative impact on your quality of life. When symptoms are severe, tinnitus can make it impossible to sleep at night and present a constant distraction during the day.
Thankfully, scheduling an appointment with an audiologist can help relieve your tinnitus symptoms and allow you to relax again without constant, annoying noise in the background. Read on for a description of the tinnitus treatment services provided by audiologists.
Hearing Aids
It's very common for people with tinnitus to also have hearing loss, and an inability to hear can contribute to tinnitus symptoms. Loud sounds such as an aircraft engine or a concert can injure the cells in your inner ear, and these cells are responsible for transmitting the sounds you hear to your brain. If you have several injured inner ear cells, your brain sometimes attempt to make up for the lack of information about sounds in your environment by creating phantom sounds. This can result in persistent ringing or whooshing noises typical of tinnitus.
An audiologist can measure your degree of hearing loss and fit you with a hearing aid to help you hear better. A hearing aid will compensate for the injured cells in your inner ear, which can reduce the likelihood of your brain creating phantom sounds and significantly improve your tinnitus symptoms.
White-Noise Machines
Many tinnitus sufferers find that their symptoms are most severe when they're in a quiet environment. One of the worst effects of this is that it can make it impossible for you to sleep at night in a quiet room. A white noise machine can reduce your tinnitus symptoms in quiet environments by continually broadcasting a subtle, static noise.
While most people are familiar with white noise machines that plug in to an electrical outlet and provide white noise for an entire room, white noise machines can also be worn around your neck — an audiologist can help you find and calibrate a neck-worn white noise machine so that it reduces your tinnitus symptoms without distracting you.
Earwax Removal
If you have impacted earwax in your ear, this can lead to tinnitus symptoms. Impacted earwax reduces the amount of sound entering your ear, which can cause tinnitus symptoms in much the same way as damaged inner ear cells — your brain compensates for the missing sounds by creating phantom noises. When you schedule an appointment with an audiologist, he or she will examine your ear for any impacted earwax and remove it, allowing you to hear freely again.
As you can see, audiologists offer a number of treatments that can reduce or eliminate your symptoms of tinnitus. If you're tired of being unable to sleep at night or being unable to relax in a quiet room, schedule an appointment with an audiologist at a clinic like Audiology Consultants, P.C. to determine the cause of your tinnitus and to find out which treatment options are right for you.